The present disclosure relates to predicting casing wear, riser wear, and friction factors in drilling operations.
In the oil and gas industry, after a wellbore has been drilled, the wellbore is often lined with a string of casing to seal the wellbore and otherwise prevent the collapse of the surrounding subterranean formations penetrated by the wellbore. The string of casing includes several tubular lengths coupled to each other at each end to provide an elongate conduit extendable into the wellbore. After the casing has been secured within the wellbore, the wellbore is often extended even further past the casing, thus requiring drill string and an associated drill bit to be extended into the wellbore through the casing. Contact between the drill string and the casing during drilling can lead to excessive casing wear, which may compromise the integrity of the casing at affected points. If the integrity of the casing is diminished too far, the casing could burst or collapse, or fluid leaks could result.
Casing wear is an inevitable problem in the oil and gas industry and engineers are constantly introducing newer methods or systems intended to prevent or reduce casing wear as far as possible. Computer programs and models often under-predict or over-predict the potential casing wear for a given well system. Due to the inherent uncertainties associated with casing wear estimation, oil and gas engineers typically overdesign the casing to avoid future problems, such as burst, collapse, and leakage, all of which might lead to well abandonment. Overdesign of the casing, however, requires a larger capital investment, which may not be necessary.
It should be understood, however, that the specific embodiments given in the drawings and detailed description thereto do not limit the disclosure. On the contrary, they provide the foundation for one of ordinary skill to discern the alternative forms, equivalents, and modifications that may be encompassed together with one or more of the given embodiments in the scope of the appended claims.